Forge Leadership Podcast Leadership Podcast from Simon Barrington

Tiria is the North West Coordinator for Just Love, a charity which inspires Christian students to pursue the biblical call to social justice. While at University in Liverpool, she was involved in setting up a Just Love group, was vice-president for the Christian Union, and graduated with a degree in history in July 2018.

Ruth Yimika Afolabi is the Founder
& CEO of a women’s faith and lifestyle platform and community called MAGNIFY which she started almost 10 years ago at age 19. Her passion to empower women was encouraged from a young age and her desire to make an impact in society at large was harnessed when she went on to study Politics at Durham University. Upon graduating she went on to work in marketing and client services for L’Oreal and then Burberry. Over the last few years, Ruth has focused on producing a range of bespoke communication solutions for clients namely in the UK, Nigeria and America and now runs Magnify full-time with a staff team, based out of the Magnify HQ in Shoreditch, London. She has been featured in The Huffington Post, Marie Claire and the Mail On Sunday due to a recognition of her work as an influential young woman redefining faith and feminism for her generation. In partnership with IVP, she and her husband have recently co-authored a book entitled ‘More Direction
- Navigating God’s Unique Calling for your Life’. Ruth also currently serves as the youngest ever Board Member of the Evangelical Alliance and has a heart for unity and the millennial generation.

Harry has been an advocate for young people in Global advocacy from the age of 15. This started by being selected to be part of the UK delegation to the G8 in Italy in 2009.
Since then he has represented Unicef,Plan international and Restless development at the United Nations. In 2014 he Co-founded Youth for Change Global .The success of Youth for Change has spread globally with regional offices in Tanzania, Bangladesh and Ethiopia. Youth for Change has won numerous awards including the prestigious True Honour Award. At grass roots level he coordinated a National schools conference where Youth for Change trained 200 school officials, teachers and police on Female genital mutilation and Early Forced Marriage to make schools a safer place. He has recently been awarded the Queens Young leader award for his services to bettering the lives of young people in the Commonwealth. He recieved this award from Her Majesty the Queen in June 2018. Harry has also worked as a parlimentary researcher and held board positions including 5 years on the board of Unicef UK. He currently works as a policy advisor in the Cabinet Office working on cross government innovation.

Galia Ben-Israel is 24 and is an Associate Pastor at KingsGate Community Church, a multisite, intergenerational, multicultural church family where she radically encountered God and became a Christian at the age of 15, having previously been an atheist. Galia studied Theology and Religion at Durham University and now, with the vision of seeing lives transformed by the power of God’s love, her varied role includes communications, storytelling and social media strategy, mentoring a younger leader, freedom ministry, leading the Bible, Doctrine and Theology stream of the KingsGate Internship programme, and Sunday service support at KingsGate’s largest centre in Peterborough. She has recently been involved with raising leaders and teams for the launch of KingsGate’s latest centre in London, and she loves equipping others to grow in their faith and walk in their God-given purposes.

David takes inspiration from his ancestors, who were bankers, brewers and business owners but also at the same time philanthropists, abolitionist campaigners and people of faith.
He has sought to carry on their legacy in a variety of settings and roles - as President of the Oxford University Student Union, Community Organiser on issues of money and debt, Researcher on multiculturalism and Founder of the Buxton Leadership Programme. He has particular interest in the politics of the common good and the possibilities for business to have greater social impact.

Alex is passionate about cultural transformation through the opportunities created by large corporates to shape and influence communities and nations. Working in a variety of roles including finance, strategy and operations analysis, Alex seeks to help organisations make great decisions through data and analysis and see those decisions drive meaningful change to the world. Inspired by mission focused companies, Alex works in the aerospace and defence sector seeking to see the world safer and better connected. Alex loves Old Testament stories of how people such as Nehemiah and Daniel found themselves in positions of great influence and how they used this to restore cities, stand up for truth and transform cultures. Alex lives in Southampton with his wife, two young children.